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Matt Lauer on Today Show: Does Mosque Have To Move Just Because of 9/11?

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

NBC’s Matt Lauer, invited on former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Freedom Works’ Matt Kibbe to discuss the Ground Zero mosque controversy and claimed that since the group behind the mosque existed in Manhattan before the World Trade Center attack, questioned: “So because of 9/11, do they have to move further away? Do they have to go elsewhere?” Armey, who was on with Kibbe to promote their new book Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto, responded to the Today show co-anchor “that because you have the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do” and pointed out to Lauer that those behind the mosque should be more “responsive to the concerns that are being raised.” The following is the full interview with Armey and Kibbe as it was aired on the August 17 Today show: MATT LAUER: Dick Armey is a former Republican congressman from Texas, who served as House Majority Leader. Matt Kibbe is CEO and president of Freedom Works, a conservative non-profit grassroots organization. Together they’ve written a new book called Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. Guys, good morning. Nice to see you again. [On screen headline: “Tea Party Manifesto, How Can The GOP Win The Midterm Elections?”] MATT KIBBE: Good morning. DICK ARMEY: Good morning. LAUER: Congressman, good to see you. ARMEY: Nice to see you. LAUER: Before I get to the book, I gotta ask you your take on this whole mosque controversy. The President seems to have turned it into a national debate with his comments over the weekend and it seems it’s getting more and more emotional. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich compared building a mosque on that site to the Nazis putting up a sign at the Holocaust Museum. Do you agree with that analogy? ARMEY: Well that’s a pretty harsh analogy, but this is an extremely important issue and it’s heart felt, as you can see, across the nation. I personally would prefer they build it someplace else, I think it would be a more respectful position for them to take. I was fascinated by the President, though. He’s obviously trying to change the subject away from his failed economic policies, but I think he really picked the wrong choice. LAUER: When you say it’s a tough analogy that Newt Gingrich came up with, I mean, you know, he’s comparing it the Nazis. We were at war against the Nazis. We are not at war against Islam. Never have been, are not now. Al Qaeda, yes, but not Islam. So do comments like that inform or inflame? ARMEY: Well it’s always, they are always difficult in both cases. I, that’s an analogy that I think is drawn a bit further than it needed to have been. Still, on the other hand, the stated purpose they give for the mosque – and in politics, you understand, I always say politics is like a dysfunctional marriage, every fight’s really about something else. The stated purpose for the mosque would be better served if out of respect for the strong feelings there, they said we want to continue with our program to enhance intercultural understanding, cross religious understandings and we’ll build it someplace else out of respect for these, these strong feelings. LAUER: So, so they have every right to build it at that site, but you think it’s, it’s in better taste to build it somewhere else? I’m, I’ll look at the title of your book, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. Liberty, by definition, is the condition of being free from restriction or control. That applies to religious freedom as well, doesn’t it? KIBBE: It sure does, but you know this community that we talk about, you find that there are people from, from all walks of life, all religions and what binds the community together is economic freedom. And we would argue about other things when we got into those issues, but it’s, it’s really, that’s what makes America great. It’s this, it’s this combination of all these different cultures and opinions. LAUER: When, when you talk about this particular group, though, this, this group has been in lower Manhattan for years and years. They were there before 9/11. So because of 9/11, do they have to move further away? Do they have to go elsewhere? ARMEY: No, there’s an old saying, that because you have the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. And I would again take this group back to their own stated purposes for the mosque. What do they hope to achieve with it? Which is greater cross cultural understandings. If that is the case, then let them be responsive to the concerns that are being raised and these concerns are legitimate heartfelt concerns. And the gracious thing to do becomes the right thing to do. And the right thing to do is to say, “I’m going to be deferential to your strong feelings because my greater cause, which I stated at the outset of this debate, will be better served by my being that generously responsive to you. And it now becomes a question of sort of a stubborn, refusal to be responsive to people’s legitimate concerns. And then you get what I call the hardening of the attitudes and now you got a national issue. LAUER: Let me move on, we’ll leave it at that. In the book you talk about the roots to of the new Republican revolution. This is a guy who led the last Republican revolution back in 1994. A revolution that in the book you read, or you write that “It did not live up to its potential because it devolved into an embarrassing gap between rhetoric and fiscal policy.” Why will the new revolution be different? KIBBE: Because this is a revolution from the bottom-up. This is real people saying politics is too important to leave it to the politicians. 1994 was an inside job of a, of a few true believers that sort of took over the Republican caucus. These folks are saying, “We don’t trust the Republicans or the Democrats to fix the economic problems we have in this country. We’re gonna do it for ourselves.” LAUER: In just a couple of seconds I have left a recent poll that I saw, NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, for the first time more people have a negative view of the Tea Party than a positive view. What is the main misconception that you think people have about the Tea Party movement? ARMEY: Well, obviously the misconception is being fostered by everybody who’s afraid of this massive big movement. Misconception that it is some place to the right extreme. This is right smack down the middle, standing on those issues that are most greatly of concern to the American people. There’s nothing violent about this. These, these are mostly grandparents. And the fact is the, the issue, the, this group of sincere, concerned Americans that are devoted to this preservation of this country as it is, are being mischaracterized every day. But I can guarantee you, if you read our book and if you walk among these folks, the first thing you’re gonna say is, “These folks are just like me and, and I got the same worries they got. And I don’t blame ’em for being here upset and trying to inform this government. You ought to listen to us for a change.” LAUER: Former Congressman Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe. Guys, thanks very much. We appreciate you being here. KIBBE: Thanks Matt. ARMEY: Thank you.

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Newsweek: Stay on Pro-Gay Marriage Ruling Will Hurt GOP Hopes for Big Social Conservative Turnout

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

How dense and forgetful does Newsweek think socially conservative voters are? Apparently so much so that the magazine’s Ben Adler predicts yesterday’s stay on Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling permitting same-sex marriages in California will blunt the hopes Republicans have of social conservatives coming out in force on Election Day to help push the GOP to victory in the midterms on Election Day. In his August 17 The Gaggle blog post, ” 9th Circuit Stays Pro-Gay Marriage Ruling, Takes Away GOP Issue, ”  Adler argues that: Social conservatives were set to use the images of gay couples getting married in California as grist to motivate their base to turn out in the midterm elections. Republicans look certain to gain seats in both Houses of Congress in November, as opposition parties typically do during midterms. Whether they will pull the inside straight they need to take over either, or both, the House and Senate, will depend on any number of factors, but turnout is sure to be one of them. Further, Adler maintained, because “the Democrats have not done much to invite images of an American Gomorrah” what with President Obama moving “very gingerly” and tentatively on issues like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” social conservatives need the visual impact of gay and lesbian couples at the altar this fall to incense social conservatives and drive them like angry hornets to the ballot box. Of course Adler’s argument completely leaves out a crucial driving force for social conservatives this November: ObamaCare and its pro-choice measures. Social conservatives are well aware that the president’s executive order was a fig leaf that supposedly pro-life “conservative” Democrats hid behind to vote for final passage on the president’s health care bill. Yet nowhere in his article does Adler consider ObamaCare’s unpopularity as a huge motivating factor for social conservative voters in a year when many Republican candidates are calling for outright repeal of the overhaul, including its abortion-subsidizing measures.

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Conservative Commentator James J. Kilpatrick Dies at 89

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

James J. Kilpatrick, best known as the conservative-curmudgeon commentator on “60 Minutes” in its “Point-Counterpoint” segment in the 1970s, has died at the age of 89. Washingtonians also remember his years as a panelist on the local weekly political talk show “Agronsky & Company.” His column “A Conservative View” was syndicated in hundreds of newspapers. The Washington Post obituary on Tuesday focused heavily on his role in promoting segregationism in the 1960s at the Richmond News-Leader and concluded with his story that he was asked to “take the side of ‘The Conservative’s View of Watergate.’ And I asked myself, ‘Just what is a conservative’s view of burglary?'” Kilpatrick’s “Point-Counterpoint” commentaries were satirized by “Saturday Night Live” in which Dan Aykroyd began his rebuttal of Jane Curtin with the phrase “Jane, you ignorant slut.” Kilpatrick was also parodied in the movie “Airplane” where a balding, crusty conservative claims that people knew what they were getting into when they bought their plane tickets: “I say let ’em crash.” In his book Tell Me A Story, Don Hewitt wrote that Saturday Night Live only prolonged the segment’s tenure. He added that liberal Shana Alexander was preceded by the left-wing columnist Nicholas von Hoffman, “who I reluctantly had to let go when he insisted on referring to the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, as ‘a dead mouse on the kitchen floor that everyone was afraid to touch and throw in the garbage.’ Granted, it was a difficult time and the description was not that far off target, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted someone to say about the president of the United States on 60 Minutes.” In his book on “60 Minutes” titled “Tick…Tick…Tick,” author David Blum wrote that it was Shana Alexander asking for a big raise from their $600 a week salary that prompted the segment’s end in 1979. The dueling politicos were replaced by Andy Rooney, who’s still on the air at 91.

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Glenn Beck Told He Can’t Lead Audience In Prayer At Kennedy Center

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck was told by officials at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that he can’t lead his audience in prayer at his August 27 Divine Destiny event. Beck has rented out the facility the night before his “Restoring Honor” celebration at the Lincoln Memorial for “an eye-opening evening…that will help heal your soul.” As Beck relayed to his radio audience Monday, his religious plans during the festivities were a serious point of contention before the powers that be came to their senses (video follows with transcript and commentary): GLENN BECK: They have told people on the steps of the Supreme Court that they cannot pray there. They have told students on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial they can’t sing the National Anthem there. And last week I was told by the Kennedy Center that we could not pray there. We were told by the Kennedy Center in no uncertain terms that we could hold our event there, sure we had a contract. But they weren’t told that we were going to have an opening prayer. The program is has the word divine in it, our divine destiny. We couldn’t pray at the Kennedy Center. So my attorneys came to me and said, Glenn, are you willing to compromise on it? And I said, I sure am. You tell them that not only will I do an opening prayer, I’ll do a closing prayer, and the entire program may be a prayer. In fact, take this down. It is a night of prayer. You’ll see if you are lucky enough to get a ticket to the Kennedy Center, and they are not for sale. You will see in the program how I described it. I described it that way. So they could print that in their program at the Kennedy Center which they insisted on having after they told us we couldn’t pray. I said, let me dictate this one. Friday night I was supposed to have a meeting today at 1:00 with their attorneys and I had already talked to my attorneys. Zero compromise. We asked them, where is that in your I didn’t see that in your rules and regulations. “It’s not written down.” No prayer at a federally funded building. Friday night I think they got a hold of Common Sense. They alerted me Friday night that they will allow prayer to happen on the stage of the Kennedy Center. I told them, thank you so much for your graciousness. I appreciate the scrap from the table. America, our religion and our faith is under attack and whether people care to realize it or not, it is. Ironically as our friends at The Right Scoop noted , prayer isn’t allowed in government buildings, but the current President “can still have a Ramadan dinner at the White House.” That said, Beck informed his readers of this event Wednesday: Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny is an eye-opening evening at the historic Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C that will help heal your soul. Guided by uplifting music, nationally-known religious figures from all faiths will unite to deliver messages reminiscent to those given during the struggles of America’s earliest days. The event will leave you with a renewed determination to look past the partisan differences and petty problems that fill our airwaves and instead focus our shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country.  Those interested can read more about Restoring Honor here .

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MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Dismisses Ground Zero Mosque Debate as a ‘Smokescreen’

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan on Monday dismissed the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque as a “political smokescreen.” The liberal anchor derided opponents of the planned construction who live in other states, sneering that there are ” people in Kansas, California, Alaska, saying ‘Oh my God. The sky is falling. The Muslims are going to kill us! It’s all going to end!'” He compared, “But, the people in Tribeca and Soho who are just, kind of, getting a cup of coffee.” Earlier in the segment, Ratigan wondered, “But is all this back and forth just a political smoke screen? Polls show a majority of Americans struggling with the same conflict as the President’s statements and his expressions.” The co-host talked to Nate Silver of the website Fivethirtyeight.com. As he pointed out, while 61 percent of voters believe that the Muslim group behind the mosque has a right to put it there, 64 percent oppose the plan. Yet, Ratigan seemed to put all the responsibility for tolerance on those who oppose the construction. He again wondered, “But, doesn’t it strike you as funny that the people who would be killed by the theoretical Muslims that are not here are afraid of, the ones who would die as a result of that attack are the ones that are least concerned about an attack from Muslims in that mosque?” A transcript of the August 16 segment, which aired at 4:01pm EDT, follows: DYLAN RATIGAN: Meanwhile, the top Senate Democrat feeling the same way, apparently. Within the past hour, Majority Leader Harry Reid became the highest profile Dem, so far, to break ranks with the White House and publicly oppose the mosque. But is all this back and forth just a political smoke screen? Polls show a majority of Americans struggling with the same conflict as the President’s statements and his expressions. Can you have the legal right to do something and at the same time a moral obligation not to? And why is it that the people who that live the closest to Ground Zero seem to be the least resistant to the mosque? And those who may be the furthest away, maybe have never even visited New York City in their lives, are the most adamantly against it? Our first guest this afternoon, Nate Silver who has been crunching the numbers, a founder of 538.com. It’s a pleasure to see you again, sir. Your data basically falls into three categories in your poll. Tell us what you’ve come up with. NATE SILVER: Well, I mean, the distinction, like you said, that Obama was struggling with on Friday night is the same ones Americans struggle with themselves, right? Where about two thirds of people think they have the right to build the mosque. Not terribly controversial. About two thirds of those people also think it’s in poor taste. Right? So, you look at the overlap. And there’s this one third in between who thinks, “They have the right to do it. But, I’m not sure how I feel about it so much.” And especially with, I guess, with some of this hedging, or the some of the way the media portrayed it as hedging, Obama is in that middle camp, too, right now, but seeming to satisfy nobody in particular. RATIGAN: You say this falls politically into a similar category as flag burning. Can you explain what the parallels are? SILVER: Well, sure. Flag burning is something where if you ask people, “Hey, do you like flag burning, right?” I don’t think too many people would say- would yes. Or, “Hey, should they build a Hooters down at the shopping mall? You might say “No, I would rather they didn’t.” But they’re clearly within First Amendment rights. There’s not too much debate about that. I mean, you know, some people have said some groups have said, “No they actually don’t have the right.” Newt Gingrich said something along those lines this morning. But, for the most part, that’s not that controversial. I think Obama went a little bit far in saying “We not only look at the right, the First Amendment’s technicality. We should respect their ability to choose how they want to worship and not try and intervene and say, “No, I would rather you not believe a different thing.”  Or that you’d go worship at a different time or a different place. So, he did go a step further than just saying “Hey, it’s about the First Amendment.” But not quite saying, “Hey, I love this idea.” RATIGAN: What about the distinction between people like myself who have lived in lower Manhattan for many years and worked around Ground Zero, walking with past Ground Zero everyday to and from work for five years straight, who look at this as really not that big of a deal? We deal with a lot of other things. This isn’t that big of a big deal. Versus people in Kansas, California, Alaska, saying “Oh my God. The sky is falling. The Muslims are going to kill us! It’s all going to end.” But, the people in Tribeca and Soho who are just, kind of, getting a cup of coffee.” SILVER: Well, you know, I think part of it, it shows that polls it shows that people in Manhattan are supportive of the mosque- mosque. Not people in New York overall, but in Manhattan where it’s being built. I think it has to do with the geography of the city. I walked around Ground Zero when the controversy started and kind of scouted out the perimeter. And you would not see the mosque anywhere from the Ground Zero property. It’s not really on the way. It’s kind of on a side street where there’s a Burlington Coat Factory. It’s very dense. And it’s not like you’re on main street where there’s one road to Ground Zero. RATIGAN: But, doesn’t it strike you as funny that the people who would be killed by the theoretical Muslims that are not here are afraid of, the ones who would die as a result of that attack are the ones that are least concerned about an attack from Muslims in that mosque? SILVER: Well, hopefully some ambitious polls, do a poll of people in the financial district in Tribeca or do a poll of who were victims in 9/11. They’re the people who should have a larger say, frankly, than the former governor of Alaska, I think. It is a local issue.

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USA Today Endorses Mosque and Berates ‘Reprehensible’ Critics Who ‘Foment Hatred’

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Add USA Today to the list of mainstream media outlets denouncing opponents of the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero. In a Monday editorial, “ New York mosque fight stirs all the wrong passions ,” the “nation’s newspaper” declared: “The argument over building a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero is mostly a sorry exercise in political exploitation” and berated that it’s “created a convenient rallying point for those who instead want to foment hatred.” The Gannett-paper’s bottom line, build it: Perhaps those seeking to build the New York mosque will defuse the situation by seeking a less controversial site. But if they do not, the mosque, like the calm that has prevailed since Sept. 11, 2001, will stand as a marker of the USA’s enduring commitment to religious freedom. The USA Today editorial board , led by former Executive Editor Brian Gallagher, scolded Republicans for whipping up “a frenzy, giving lip service to religious freedom but offering no solution that wouldn’t offend it. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been setting new lows for dialogue on this issue, even accused Obama of ‘pandering to radical Islam,’ as if any President would do such a thing.” Gallagher and gang relied on self-interested parties for proof of the supposed nefarious motives of opponents:  The proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero created a convenient rallying point for those who instead want to foment hatred, according to national Islamic leaders and academics who study Islam. Small groups, using books, blogs and all the powers of today’s technology, have leapt at the chance to exploit the opposition to that mosque. “Ordinary Americans who don’t have a lot of information (about Islam) are bombarded with this,” says Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. “It makes them anxious and uncertain.” Responsible people “need to provide information and outreach.” Which is why it is reprehensible for people claiming national leadership to stir the pot… Below the editorial, the August 16 newspaper carried nine “ other views on mosque ,” including this one – written long before 9/11 – meant to undercut the legitimacy of critics: “The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.” —James Madison, fourth President, and the Founder most responsible for defining Americans’ religious freedom, in 1821.

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Store-Openings And Surprises On The Fabulous Beekman Boys Season Finale

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Image credit: Planet Green Dare to dream. When I was a little kid, I used to hear it all the time. Dare to dream. You can be a lawyer or a doctor or even the President of the United States. I dared to dream. And I became me. Hahahahahaha. Sometimes though, if you dare to dream, things can work out beautifully. I dared to dream of double digit episodes of The Fabulous Beekman Boys …. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Newsweek Defends Obama’s Leisure But Mocked Bush’s Working Vacations at Texas Ranch

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

While Newsweek’s David Graham is hard at work defending President Obama’s summertime leisure — “A Short History of Presidential Vacation Outrage” — by insisting that the press corps always complains about any president’s vacation habits, it’s instructive that he failed to indict his own magazine. “War on terrorism stalled, economy on precipice, time for a month on the Crawford ranch.” Accompanied by a disapproving down arrow, that’s how the August 5, 2002 Newsweek feature “Conventional Wisdom” derided President Bush’s working vacation a mere three months before midterm elections in his first term. Elsewhere in Newsweek’s coverage at the time, writers put the term working vacation into derisive quote marks, and otherwise presented President Bush’s time away from Washington, including a quasi-campaign swing called the “Heartland Tour,” as a nakedly political move to bolster his sagging approval numbers. From Martha Brant’s August 7 “Web exclusive” entitled “Look Who’s Back”: The White House went on the defensive: aides whipped up a WESTERN WHITE HOUSE logo to tack up behind the podium at the makeshift briefing room at the Crawford Elementary School. They cut his vacation short a few days, apparently so it wouldn’t be the longest on record (which is held by Richard Nixon at 31 days). The Republican National Committee did a focus group on the president’s vacation. Pollsters found that most people believe that the president is never really on vacation. That’s the line they’re sticking with this year. The president, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer explained the other day, “is going to bring the White House with him to Crawford.” But all their efforts didn’t stop Letterman from making fun of Bush’s vacation again this year. The other night he gave the “Top Ten Signs President Bush Needs A Vacation.” No. 7: It’s been, what, two weeks since he went fishing? Late-night comedy and the RNC focus group agree on one thing: Bush needs to remain proactive on vacation, especially now with the Iraq situation bubbling up and the economy flagging. This month Bush will meet with his defense secretary as well as the president of Mexico. He will host an economic forum at Baylor University in Waco. And he will visit at least 15 cities, spending about half his vacation time on public events in politically significant states. At least once a week, he’ll attend a so-called “political activity” (read: fund-raiser). But the main thrust of August is what the White House bills as Bush’s “Home to the Heartland” return tour. This is Hughes’s specialty: keeping Bush in touch with average people and their issues. He’ll appear at events with “real Americans,” as one top aide explained, and talk to them about their economic “concerns.” There’s nothing like a photo op with a prize-winning pig at the Iowa State Fair to get out the message: I’m not from Washington, D.C., where pork has a whole different meaning. A year earlier and prior to the 9/11 attacks, Anna Quindlen took a different tack, calling on President Bush in an August 27, 2001 piece to push for European-style August vacations for everyone: Mandate the closing of everything else in the country during the month. The liberals would love the energy savings, the lights off in office buildings, the fossil fuels unburned. Conservationists would be thrilled as national parks and forests revive without the tramp-tramp-tramp of millions of tourists. Health-care professionals would breathe a sigh of relief as Americans walked to the homes of friends, elevating their heart rates and, in the process, seeing people they’ve been meaning to get together with for ages. Republicans could tout the family-values aspect of four weeks in which parents would be more or less forced to stay home and talk to their children. And talk about community activism! Instead of government programs or even nonprofit organizations taking meals to the homebound by van, ordinary Americans could find it in their hearts to carry a nice plate of pasta next door. Newspapers and news magazines would close, too, and television could run previously shown programs. (Whoops! I guess someone already took care of that one!) George W could mash his finger without any snide Gerald Ford comments, and he could take his vacation without any editorializing. No press, no mail, no bills, no sweat. The stock market would have a much-needed timeout; so would Major League Baseball, especially those Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Sure, there would be opposition from conservatives who object to big government’s interfering with the right to develop blocked arteries and sleep difficulties. But research on work habits, as well as observation of the typical American tourist ripping though a European cathedral in record time, suggest that there’s a deep-seated inability to relax in the U.S. of Type A. Each president brings to the job his own ethos, his own character, his own karma. George W. Bush has it in him to become the Vacation President, to lead a grateful and very tired nation to a place in which its citizens can stop and smell the onion rings.  Fast forward nine years to President Obama’s second year in office, and Newsweek’s David Graham all but sighs at the supposed pettiness in the media when it comes to criticizing any president’s vacation habits: Despite White House spokesman Bill Burton’s suggestion that the Obamas are being harassed with unprecedented attack for their recent leisure travels, this is nothing new. As Kenneth Walsh says , criticizing the president’s cottage destination has become a cottage industry in D.C.: “No matter who is the president, the opposition party delights in criticizing him for taking time off, billing it as insensitive to the problems of struggling Americans, demonstrating aristocratic excess, or betraying some hedonistic character flaw.” The only thing new are the creative methods of finding fault with taking time off. Ironically what Newsweek is attempting to do is defend an approval rating-challenged liberal president by capitalizing on the public’s low approval of the press corps. This is further amusing given the magazine’s complaint in the February 1 “Conventional Wisdom” feature that Obama was too docile, not “fighting” hard enough. “Yo, professor: CW wanted someone to fight for us. Not lead a bloodless seminar,” Newsweek huffed as it lamented that “Obama celebrates first year [in office] by losing Kennedy seat to GOP. Will he finally take the gloves off?” Perhaps Newsweek is now convinced that the more pugilistic Obama sounds ahead of the midterms, the more damage he’s likely to do for his allies in Congress. 

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ABC’s Amanpour Takes Dig at Bush: Relations w/ Muslim World ‘Devastatingly Damaged Over the Previous Eight Years’

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It’s one thing to acknowledge that the Muslim world has had a negative reaction to America ‘s war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, but, when one starts referring to “the previous eight years” before the Obama administration, it starts to sound like partisan Democratic talking points. As ABC’s Christiane Amanpour appeared on Sunday’s Good Morning America to talk about President Obama’s predicament regarding his speech on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, Amanpour at one point recounted that relations with the Muslim world had suffered during the “previous eight years” before Obama became President. After host John Berman queried as to “how is this playing in the Muslim world,” Amanpour at one point asserted: “But clearly President Obama from the very beginning went out of his way to try to repair relations with the Islamic world which had been so devastatingly damaged over the previous eight years.” The war in Afghanistan was only seven years old when Obama took office, so her “previous eight years” crack could only be interpreted as a reference to the entire Bush presidency rather than the war itself. Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, August 15, Good Morning America: JOHN BERMAN: There is, of course, another audience here, the international audience, how is this playing in the Muslim world? CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Well, all of this will inevitably play. How precisely these last two days of comments and change in comments will play, we’ll wait to see. But clearly President Obama from the very beginning went out of his way to try to repair relations with the Islamic world which had been so devastatingly damaged over the previous eight years . He not only mentioned that in his inauguration speech, in his first interviews, but also with that big speech in Cairo, and obviously, talking about trying to get moderate Muslims also to stand up for their faith and to stand against extremism. And, in fact, the people who are in charge of building this have spoken out against 9/11, have condemned terrorism and are viewed as those in the moderate community. So it’s clearly something that has come a cropper, if you like, since they were able to build this and protests have started. But the question, is vital. What does it actually mean, how far away is suitable? Can a mosque be built there? There are other mosques in that general area. What does it precisely mean when you strip it all down, this political furor that’s been started over this?

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ABC’s Amanpour Takes Dig at Bush: Relations w/ Muslim World ‘Devastatingly Damaged Over the Previous Eight Years’

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Some Alternative Plans for the ‘Ground Zero’ ‘Mosque’ [Suggestions]

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On Friday, President Obama spoke out supporting the right of the developers of the Cordoba House —the so-called ” ground zero mosque “—to build at their site. And Republicans wouldn’t shut up about it. It’s okay! We have other ideas. More

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